In a rare area of agreement, both presidential candidates want to help working families with childcare expenses. Donald Trump recently proposed a tax deduction for parents who place their kids in daycare; Hillary Clinton backs an even more costly plan, providing a refundable tax credit that would send daycare reimbursement checks even to families paying no income tax.

Both candidates, however, fail to recognize the unfairness of such arrangements to parents who decide to leave the workforce or cutback hours to care for their children themselves. Any arrangement to give tax breaks or subsidies to families with kids in day care should provide equivalent support for parents who make big sacrifices to care for their own kids.

If federal policies ignore or exclude such stay-at-home-moms-or-dads, that means government encouragement for the choice to place your children in the care of others, while ignoring the crucial, personal child-rearing role that many parents still choose to play.